


A Very Cauldron Christmas

by xbritomartx



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Cauldron, Character Study, Gen, Ghosts of Christmas, Inspired by A Christmas Carol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 19:06:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12894756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xbritomartx/pseuds/xbritomartx
Summary: Christmas Eve, 2009. Doctor Mother is trying to sleep, but ghosts keep waking her up and telling her to mend her evil ways.





	A Very Cauldron Christmas

** Stave I: Hero's Ghost **

_ December 24, 2009 _

They'd been tantalizingly close to a breakthrough.

So very, very, _very_ close.

But now the facility was gone. Even the topsoil and plants that had surrounded the building were gone.

The relevant subjects were gone, killed or released onto Earth Bet.

Six extremely powerful formulae, carefully packaged and mere days away from delivery, were gone.

The conviction she'd been close to unraveling one of the mysteries, the near excitement she'd spent her twenty-hour days in lately, the _hope_ they'd dared to feel for the first time in nearly a decade—all gone.

In spite of the despair she felt, the frustration so intense she could taste bitterness, Doctor Mother retained her outward calm. How she expressed her emotional state seemed to be the only thing she _could_ control at this point.

The Number Man stood beside her. He was apparently facing this with as much equanimity as she seemed to be, but there were tells. His face was unshaven, there were bags under his eyes, and sweat stains were visible at the armpits of his wrinkled shirt.

"How bad is it?" she asked.

"Catastrophic," he answered. "Three and a half percent of our total assets to rebuild this facility as it was."

That was bad, but not exactly _catastrophic_. She knew better than to hope he was exaggerating, so she waited for him to clarify.

"Eighteen and a quarter percent if we rebuild it and the others by connecting them to the surrounding terrain," he said. "That will provide additional reinforcement and prevent her from doing this again."

"She won't repeat herself," the Doctor said.

"Behemoth attacked Lyon twice," he said.

"I take your point," she replied. "Go ahead."

He nodded. "We can recover," he said.

Neither of them believed it.

"We will press on," she said, correcting him.

By unspoken agreement, they turned and left.

They parted ways without speaking; he went to his office, and she crossed through a second portal to the single floor of the main building that held the core staff's personal quarters. She would resume her endless work removing and liquefying parts of the alien being for distribution the following day.

For now, she needed to rest—she felt the need to unwind a little before trying to sleep, so she seated herself in an armchair with a novel instead of going directly to bed.

No sooner had she propped her feet up on her ottoman and opened her book than she heard a massive clanking in the hallway.

"Custodian?" she asked.

No response.

Unusual.

"Custodian?" she said again, louder this time.

Her voice had to be louder, because the clanking was louder—closer.

Nothing.

Concerning.

The clanking was now right outside her door.

Well.

Two transparent parts of a man who had been torn down the middle oozed through.

As he flowed forward, she saw the source of the clanking: tinkertech. Tools, toolboxes, guns, jetpacks, armor, all held together by the yards and yards of insubstantial chain that wound around him and trailed off through the door.

Hero.

Another loss.

The Doctor resolutely leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, blotting out her perception of the bifurcated being.

A master or stranger effect was more likely than an outright hallucination, she decided, but the phantom's origins ultimately didn't matter. Regardless of whether this stemmed from an indigestion-induced illusion or a parahuman attack on her senses, her best course of action was not to engage it and to stay put. She trusted that Contessa would get back from executing damage control on Bet and address the situation soon enough.

She didn't consider the possibility that Hero was actually haunting her for even a fraction of a second.

"You don't believe in me," he said, and the spirit used the same voice the man he resembled had once spoken with.

Instead of replying, the Doctor glanced at her watch, wondering how Contessa would solve the problem and let her get some sleep.

"Why is that, Heloise?"

The use of her former name, one Hero hadn't known, caught the Doctor's attention. She looked back at the "ghost," and a third explanation for this absurd display crossed her mind.

Contessa was playing a joke.

That didn't make sense, but nothing about this situation did—besides which the girl's sense of humor had _always_ been abominable.

Still, her timing was generally better than this.

One half of Hero cocked his head, and the other frowned in disapproval. "I come back from the dead—well, er, provisionally—and you can't even talk to me?"

"I've dealt intimately with superpowers since 1980. It's not unreasonable to assume that whatever effect is causing this will strengthen if I engage with it."

"Fine," he said. Both halves of his head sighed, which made his right lung flop out. He caught it with his left hand and awkwardly scooped it back into his thoracic cavity.

"Besides," she added—and nobody but Contessa would have caught the hesitation in her voice—"You don't strike me as the damnable type."

He looked puzzled. "Oh, you mean this?" he asked at last, indicating his chains. "Just a convenient way to keep my tech attached to me. It's not _punishment_ or anything."

She was a little relieved to hear that, in spite of herself. _He_ hadn't done anything bad, really.

"You, however . . ." He cleared his throat. "You won't be so lucky. The path you walk is going to lead to the failure of your mission. and the loss of your soul."

The Doctor yawned. This was old hat, and she was so very tired.

"Three spirits will follow me," Hero intoned. "Three times will they visit you, the first this evening at one, the next tomorrow evening at two, and the third the evening after at three. This will mark your final chance to repent and reform."

The Doctor returned her attention to her book.

"Look," Hero said, obviously frustrated. "I, just—Don't fuck this up, okay? A lot is riding on your choices."

"I am aware," she replied, not looking up.

He disappeared with another sigh.

"Custodian," the Doctor said, _willing_ herself to radiate utter calm, "Did you notice anything out of the ordinary just now?"

Custodian touched her left hand.

As she'd expected.

The Doctor very deliberately closed her book, rose, went to her bathroom, took three sleeping pills out of the little orange bottle in the medicine cabinet, swallowed them, and climbed into bed.


End file.
